Greece: an attractive destination : Striving towards development or failure?

Abstract: Greece is a well-known and recommended summer destination since the 1800’s. Greece have has its ups and downs however, travelers have always visited the country. When the economic crisis hit the country a reduction in the numbers of travelers and how those travelers spent their money differently became visable. In social media Greece were presented as an unattractive and unsafe destination to be in. Despite that Greece has developed and went from a stagnation phase to a rejuvenation phase. The Greek economy crisis hit the country hard and Greece did not want to lose its largest source of income – their travelers. In order to not lose their travelers Greece needed help. Theories such as push and pull factors, SWOT-analysis and Butler’s sequence model will be presented and used on Greece as a tourist destination in need of development. In order to approach this problemareas, selected theories and interviews have been the key factor. By including previous research that touches the problem areas, situations can be explained. The previous research will help readers to see on similar ways of handeling crisis problems that have been brought to the surface because of the crisis. Deeper interviews have been done with Apollo, the Greek National Tourism Organisation, students at Södertörns University and also infomers at an event about Greece here in Stockholm. This dissertation will show that Greece was considered being an attractive destination before and also during the year of the crisis, according to its travelers. Travelers did indeed travel to Greece, however, they did not spend much money or time at the destination as earlier. That requiers a re-attraction of travelers and their spendings. In order to re-attract travelers, Greece has to work with its image, marketing and promotion. The figures in this dissertation will show what has to be done, and how to follow some crisis management steps in order to prevent this situations of happening again. As any destination has areas to improve, so has Greece.